I’ve spent this week at the EDUCAUSE Learning Technology Leadership Institute, which is in Madison this year. This is an intensive leadership program similar in structure to the ACRL Institute for Information Literacy Immersion. EDUCAUSE also has programs for managers and senior leaders. We spent the week in presentations, facilitated sessions, finding out our personality types and their implications for working in teams, and working in a large team on a case study. Right now I think the most important things I learned are:
- As a librarian, it was gratifying to confirm in discussions that I have learned a terrific amount about instructional design, teaching and learning initiatives, college campuses, working in teams, and project management. It was nice to see that the expertise is comparable to that of people who identify as leaders in Learning Technology.
- Instructional technologists have some methods for dealing with project management that we should adopt. Some examples are project charters and use case studies. I’ve been thinking about a use case for our Library Course Pages, and now I know more about how to approach that.
- I like working in teams, but I’m not too sure about the whole personality type thing. As usual, I ended up doing part of the presentation, which was fun.
- It is interesting and very instructive to hear the perspective of high-level IT folks on campus politics and a variety of projects and technologies. Aaron Brower and Ron Kraemer came to speak with us today, and I learned a great deal about their strategies and work styles.
- It is really interesting to connect with instructional techology people as peers over a period of time. I will be sure to call on many of these people in the future.
We’ll see what we learn on the last day, which is set aside for reflection. It is really incredibly exhausting to participate in an immersion program as a local, and I know the other Madison people also feel it. When you go home, your real life is still waiting, along with those 600 emails.
I was glad Kathy Christoph recommended the program and Ron Kraemer decided to sponsor the attendance of members of the ComETS Steering Committee.
I was introduced to project charters about 3 years ago at a management training conference. I have tried them in a few settings with mixed success. The up-front thinking involved in the initial draft of the charter was always the most helpful for me. Charters have been more successful for me when applied to projects where there is little face-to-face interaction of the team members or when some team members need more structure.
Comment by Emily Wixson — July 18, 2008 @ 8:25 am |